Mirage
by ChinaE
Summary: Not everything is as it seems.


Title: Mirage  
Author: Erika  
Email: funhapjoy@yahoo.com  
Fandom: Smallville  
Beta: Pollyanna.  
  
Summary: ClarkLex Fest challenge. Lex dies, Clark mourns. Lex comes back. Clark has a new invisible friend/lover. (Midnight)  
  
Website:  
http://carlaerika.150m.com  
http://www.geocities.com/carlajanep/Erika/EEpart00.html  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
"Lex!" Clark screamed.  
  
He was losing his grip, the weight of both men was becoming too much for the fifteen-year old. Earl's meteorite-infected body was playing havoc with Clark's abilities, poisoning him in ways he never believed possible. For the first time Clark realized he'd only be strong enough to save one of the men. As he tried for one last time to bring both men up to the railings, Earl started to shake. Clark lost his grip and he watched helplessly, as though in slow motion, as Lex fell to the ground below. A loud thud was made as Lex's tangled body hit the floor. Neck twisted in such a way that he resembled a broken doll, discarded by a playing child.  
  
Clark couldn't stop screaming.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
"Clark, please wake up," Martha called out to her son, bringing him out of another nightmare.  
  
Clark shook, body twisting, flexing, moving away from his mother's comforting embrace and further entangling himself with the bed sheets.  
  
He gulped loudly, trying to catch his breath, desperately failing, unable to stop the panic within that seemed to be steadily increasing, engulfing him further.  
  
It was only a nightmare.  
  
That time, in Level Three, he'd saved Lex.  
  
He rubbed his hands along his face, unable to face the new day.  
  
"I know this is hard for you, son, but you can't keep doing this to yourself."  
  
"I could've saved him, mom. If I had been there, I could've saved him," Clark repeated. The day of the accident Lex had invited him to Metropolis but Clark had wanted to stay in Smallville and moon after Lana, who had again broken up with Whitney.  
  
And Lex hadn't even been angry with Clark, he had just smiled indulgently at him. On his way to Metropolis, a storm had hit, causing massive car accidents along its path. Cars had piled up. Thirty injured. Six deaths, among them Lex Luthor, whose body had been burned beyond recognition.  
  
"Clark," Martha gently admonished her son. "It's not your fault. You can't keep blaming yourself like this," she tenderly touched his face, wiping away a tear.  
  
"Mama," Clark cried out as he enveloped her in his arms.  
  
A month had passed since Lex's death and Clark was still unable to cope with losing his best friend.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
In school, as he stared stonily at the blackboard in front of him, Clark felt a slight breeze along his cheek. There had been times during this month when Clark could have sworn that Lex was alive, still near him, only to be reminded of the truth.  
  
Clark looked out the window and for a moment it seemed as though Lex was out there, in the school parking lot. Lex wearing a long black jacket, standing in the rain, smiling sadly at him but when Clark blinked Lex was gone.  
  
"Mister Kent," the teacher called to Clark. "If you can't get your thoughts out of the clouds, don't bother to come to class."  
  
Clark looked back outside, droning out the laughter coming from his fellow classmates.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
Another day, another nightmare. This time instead of dreaming about Level Three, he dreamt Ryan's stepfather had shot Lex in the limousine, dumping Lex's dead body out of the car for Clark to find.  
  
"You can't keep doing this," a voice whispered, coming from the foot of the bed.  
  
Clark quickly sat up and rubbed his eyes, unable to believe the sight in front of him. Lex wearing a black turtle neck, grey slacks, sitting cross-legged on top of Clark's bed, head tilted to one side, concerned blue-grey eyes staring back at him.  
  
"Lex." Clark gasped, needing so desperately to touch Lex. To reinforce the one thought screaming in Clark's mind, 'Lex was here and he was alive.'  
  
But it was not meant to be, for as soon as Clark touched the presence in front of him, his hands instead of finding a solid body went through the mirage and landed on top of the bed.  
  
"Um...Clark? I'm dead, remember." Lex told him as he now leaned against the computer desk.  
  
"You're here?" Clark asked, still unable to believe, accept, what his eyes were telling him.  
  
"Yeah," Lex said somewhat absentmindedly as he looked around the room, taking in the pictures of Pete and Chloe along the small bookcase and the scattered clothes on the floor of the bed. "I thought, I'd end up somewhere hotter," he grinned somewhat sheepishly, "not here."  
  
"Lex."  
  
"That's my name."  
  
"Lex."  
  
"We've established that Clark."  
  
Clark broke into a big grin and reached out to again hug his friend only to pass through Lex, as Lex let out a somewhat girlie scream.  
  
"Clark, are you all right?" His mother called from behind the closed door.  
  
"Yeah, yeah." Clark looked frantically around him. Lex was holding his stomach, grimacing slightly, looking rather pale even for a ghost. Clark opened the closet door. "Get in," he told Lex.  
  
"What?" Lex looked at Clark, eyebrow raised as though questioning Clark's sanity. "It's a mess in there."  
  
"Please." Blue eyes gazed back at Lex and then at the door handle as it turned.  
  
"You so owe me," Lex told him as he stepped inside the closet and as its door closed behind him.  
  
"Clark, are you okay?" Martha smiled at her son as she walked into the room and started to pick up the clothes lying on the floor.  
  
"I'll do that." Clark reached out to take the basket from his mother.  
  
"I don't mind."  
  
"No, really," he insisted, wanting his mother out of his room as quickly as possible.  
  
"Clark?" Martha asked as she reached for the closet door and found her son blocking her path.  
  
"It's just, you know, I'm old enough to pick after myself."  
  
"I know," Martha frowned slightly, as she stared at Clark, concern written all over her face. "Well...if you really want to do this..." she left the rest unsaid as she lay the basket on the floor, kissed Clark on the cheek and walked out of the room.  
  
Clark breathed a sigh of relief, as the door closed behind her. He then opened the closet door only to find it empty.  
  
Clark rested his forehead along the wooden panel, a part of him doubting his sanity. He had been so sure he'd seen Lex, but he hadn't.  
  
As Clark stepped inside the closet, for a brief moment the air around him cooled, and as he shook his head, as though to clear his thoughts things became normal again. Just before he left his bedroom, Clark could have sworn he heard beating drums coming from the direction of the closet.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
Every morning, as Clark awakened, he hoped to see the image of Lex at the foot of his bed. But the spirit of his friend, if he had visited him that day, never returned. Even his nightmares had stopped and with them gone, Clark no longer had anything that tied him to Lex.  
  
As for his closet, well, it was now mostly empty. Now and again, after school, Clark would sit on its floor, bearing milk and cookies with him, childishly awaiting for the apparition of his friend to reappear.  
  
The closet had become to Clark his new Fortress of Solitude, as the barn now held too many painful memories.  
  
On the fifth day of his vigil in the closet, Clark finally gave up, and closed its door. Before he had kept it open in the hopes that Lex would step out of it, but he now realized those were foolish thoughts.  
  
With the door now shut, Clark sat on his bed, staring at it, using his x-ray vision to peek inside.  
  
Later that night, there was a brief knock on the closet door. Hearing the noise, Clark blinked somewhat sleepily, waking up slowly. There was probably nothing there, but even as he rested, bringing the discarded bed sheets closer to him, a smile formed upon his lips.  
  
Again the knock sounded, and as Clark quickly left the comfort of his bed to open the closet door he heard Lex's voice and that of another man.  
  
"Honestly, Yank, that misguided walk in the woods would have killed you if you weren't already dead." The older grey-haired man, dressed in something that to Clark resembled a bell-boy's outfit, spoke to Lex, as he added more wood to the fireplace.  
  
There was a wooden cabin inside his closet, Clark thought, trying to control the hysterical laughter building inside of him.  
  
Lex ignored his companion and instead ran up to Clark who was staring at him in shock. "Thank god, you came." Lex wore a long brown winter jacket that was slightly wet. His jeans and boots were covered in snow.  
  
"Please, tell me you brought food," Lex asked him as he tried to sidestep a white wolf nipping at his heels. As though realizing that it would be a losing battle to ignore the dog, Lex bent down and engulfed the white wolf-dog in his arms. "I'll miss you too, Dief. Take care of the old goat for me."  
  
"I heard that," the old man called out as the dog licked one side of Lex's face.  
  
The wolf dog then barked toward Clark, as if to warn him, 'take care of him, or I will eat you, young pup.' Clark shook his head, wondering if somehow unbeknownst to him he had lost his mind. If he was still dreaming.  
  
"Yank," the man beside the fireplace called to them.  
  
"Sir," Lex responded turning back. Bemused affection lighted his eyes.  
  
"Always welcome here, son," was the kind response from the older man.  
  
"Thank you, sir." Lex replied as he stepped out of the wooden cabin, hidden in the closet and into Clark's bedroom.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
Once alone with Lex, Clark found himself asking, "I'm not dreaming this, am I?"  
  
"I don't know, how to answer that Clark." Lex's eyes looked slightly grim. "I mean, if you are dreaming this, my death, that means I'm still alive but..." he paused, frowning slightly as though gathering his words. "I really don't want to be dead, but this seems so real. You. Bob. Dief." Lex spreads his arms about him. "I just remember a dark tunnel and my mother's voice, beckoning me, and the feeling of falling, until I opened my eyes and woke up next to you." From where he sat on the foot of the bed, Lex gathered his legs, hugging them close to him. "Then, we were in your biology class and I reached out to touch you, to ask what was going on...but you couldn't hear me. No one could. After a while, I could no longer scream."  
  
"Lex." Clark reached out to his friend, wanting to comfort him, to erase the pain from the gaze but Lex moved out of reach.  
  
"Anyway here I am, Lex Luthor, status: dead. Current occupation: ghost. Employment: to haunt Clark Kent."  
  
"But I still don't..."  
  
"What?" Lex asked, with a certain tiredness in his voice.  
  
"Why me? Of all the places you could have haunted..." Clark was glad that Lex was here but it was now just beginning to dawn on him that this could complicate matters. Talking to a ghost only he could see, would definitely confirm people's opinion of him as a freak. He would never be able to date.   
  
"So," Lex lay on Clark's bed, unaware of the internal dialogue his friend was currently having. "What's new?" Lex yawned, getting more comfortable on the bed, his eyes dropping slightly.  
  
"Nothing really. It has been quiet," Clark answered, watching as his friend entered into a deep slumber, later covering Lex in a quilt his mother had made for him, unable to focus on anything but the one thought -- Lex was here, in his room, asleep on his bed.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
The mutants that had once sprung, almost daily, to present problems for Clark were strangely absent during the next few days. Whether it was Lex's presence by his side or other reasons unknown to Clark, he was just grateful that at least for now he did not have to face them.  
  
In time, he had also become accustomed to the sight of a white wolf-dog sleeping next to his friend, leaving dog hair on his sheets. However, he never quite reconciled himself to opening his closet door on a log cabin, complete with ancient Mountie.  
  
When Clark asked Lex about this place, his friend would just smile, cheeks pink, rosy from the cold, from his walks in those mystical woods.  
  
A woods and cabin that Clark was unable to enter, unable to will himself to step inside.  
As tranquil, mutant-free days settled around him, Clark pushed aside his fears that his powers would be revealed to Lex. As the days passed, he banqueted in the semi-normalness of his life.  
  
"Hey, Dief." Clark called out to the wolf-dog who sat next to his friend. The dog wagged its tail and allowed himself to be petted and fussed over by the once Luthor heir.  
  
Dief seemed part of this unexplained force, but as far as Clark could tell, was actually alive. Aside from the hair Dief left behind, both his parents had commented on seeing a white dog near the farm, particular in his mother's flower garden.  
  
"Lex."  
  
Clark left his backpack on the floor of the bed and walked up to stand next to Lex, who was at the moment ignoring him.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
"Were you ever going to tell me, Clark?"  
  
"Tell you what?" Clark felt slightly queasy, expecting the worst.  
  
"I heard your parents," Lex said carefully, still not facing him. "They were talking about a spaceship. About you."  
  
"I..." Clark hand reached to touch Lex on the shoulder. For one moment forgetting Lex was a ghost. "I meant to tell you."  
  
"When? I'm already dead, Clark. I can't harm you like this."  
  
"No. No. You don't understand."  
  
"Then tell me. I would like to think that you could've trusted me."  
  
"Lex. I..."  
  
"I thought you believed in me. I am my father's son, Clark, but I am also more than that."  
  
"I know. I was just...everybody in this town already thinks I'm weird I didn't..." Please don't leave, Clark thought, unknowingly saying the words aloud.  
  
"Clark, god, you're just a kid. Look, I'm not angry, well a bit, but, I thought we were friends, closer than that..."  
  
"We are." Clark confirmed.  
  
"Are we?"  
  
"The best of friends," Clark said, as he tried to salvage things between them.  
  
"Friends who lie to each other," Lex sighed. "That's not friendship, Clark."  
  
They stared at one another, knowing the truth behind those words.  
  
Clark hadn't really meant to lie to Lex, to anyone for that matter but he needed to keep his secrets, his family safe. While a part of him had trusted Lex, as Lex had said, they had both lied. Both hid behind lies to protect themselves, to the point that lying had become second nature to them.  
  
Maybe it was time things changed. For the truth to come out, for it to be spoken. Clark stretched out his hands. "Hi, I'm Clark Kent and I'm an alien."  
  
Lex just continued to pet Dief, ignoring Clark's offer of friendship. Of renewal.  
  
Dief whined and pressed himself against Lex, pushing him toward Clark.  
  
"Pushy wolf," Lex murmured softly as he sighed. "I'm Lex Luthor, genius, and evil-mastermind."  
  
"Pleasure to meet you." Clark responded, forgetting for a moment that Lex was dead. Just as they were about to shake hands, as they touched, Clark jumped back. He had felt a small electrical current pass through him via Lex.  
  
"What was that?" They both asked, looking down at their hands and each other.  
  
"Static?"  
  
"Wouldn't I have to be real to give you static?"  
  
They touched again, this time feeling a tingling sensation that soon disappeared. It was as if upon first contact, they were able to feel each other, for a brief moment before Clark's hand went through Lex's.  
  
Both boys smiled at this new discovery.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
Forty eight hours had passed since they discovered that Lex could briefly be touched and touch in return. Hours of torture for Clark as Lex experimented with this ability, touching Clark constantly, at school, on the bus or in the barn.  
  
Touching his hair, Clark's hand or face and asking to be touched in return.  
  
It hadn't taken Clark long to notice the way Lex sought the contact, arching into it, getting hard from the tingling sensation the touch produced.  
  
In many ways it didn't surprise him how those brief moments of contact changed and intensified until it was Lex stretched on the bed and Clark beside him tracing his fingertips along Lex's arm, collarbone, chest, willing Lex to feel this, noticing the  
goosebumps appearing on Lex's naked flesh  
  
"I wish," Clark started to say.  
  
"What?" Lex gasped aloud, eyes following Clark's hand.  
  
"I wish we had done this before," Clark's fingers traced Lex's nipple. "I want to feel you. Really feel you not just..." He sighed.  
  
"Keep touching me Clark," Lex panted back.  
  
"I want more." Clark responded. "This isn't enough. Be real, Lex. Please be real." Clark murmured into Lex's ear.  
  
"Please..." and as if they had been granted a wish, Lex's body started to slowly solidify, being reborn, remade by Clark's hands. Soon Clark was tasting Lex's tears, tracing his tongue down Lex's chest and navel, feeling as Lex's cock jumped in his hand, the eager fluid flowing from its tip.   
  
"Clark," Lex pulled Clark's hair, hips coming off the bed, cock being pushed further down Clark's throat.  
  
Clark let Lex fuck his mouth, milking him until Lex arched one last time, spent.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
Morning and Clark gingerly stretched along the empty bed. The rumpled sheets the only evidence of the passion he had shared with Lex the night before.  
  
"Lex?" Clark called, looking about.  
  
He got out of bed and put on clean underwear.  
  
"Lex?" Clark opened the closet door. No sign of Lex or a cabin.  
  
Refusing to panic, Clark closed the door and sat back down on the bed. Lex was probably with Dief, that had to be it. Anything else and Clark didn't think he would survive.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
There was a quietness around the kitchen that reminded Clark too much of the day his parents had told him Lex was dead.  
  
In fact, his parents were again doing that silent conversation thing parents tend to do.  
  
"Clark," his father started to say, "son, we have some news."  
  
"Is everything all right?"  
  
"It's about Lex." His mother laid her hands along Clark's forearms, but Clark hardly felt her touch.  
  
"Lex? What about him?" Lex was dead and was now his lover. Did his parents know? And how could he explain? More importantly, would they let him keep Lex?  
  
"He's alive."  
  
"What?" And Clark almost stumbled out off his stool, in his attempt to stand up.  
  
"It seems that he wasn't in the car during the accident. Someone had hijacked it, and dumped an injured Lex along a creek. A mountie and his dog found him. The Chicago PD have been trying to locate his family."  
  
"He's alive?" Clark couldn't believe what they were telling him.  
  
"Yes. He has been in a coma all this time. They, the police, finally identified him last night," his mother explained, concerned at her son's sudden paleness.  
  
"Where is he?" Clark got up.  
  
"At the hospital, outside of Metropolis."  
  
"I have to see him." Lex. God. Lex alive.  
  
"Clark, wait." His father stopped him. "Son, we don't know what state he is in. How intensive are his injuries. Lionel probably already moved him to a ..."  
  
"Dad," Clark was ready to argue, his heart beating rapidly, he needed to see Lex. "I need to see him, please," he begged, for once not caring how his parents interpreted his words. His plea.  
  
His parents shared a look, quietly Jonathan said, "I'll call Ethan at the Sheriff's office maybe he could find out for us if Lex is still in that hospital." Clark hugged his father. "After all I wouldn't want you to go all the way there only to find out they have moved him to Metropolis."  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
It had taken Clark an hour to find Lex amidst the other patients in this hospital. His x-ray vision was of little use in a hospital with outer shell steel covering.  
  
Now as he sat next to Lex watching the rise and fall of his friend's chest as he slept, Clark was for the first time afraid. He was afraid that everything that had happened these past few days was a figment of his imagination. His way of coping with loss.  
  
"Excuse me? I didn't know someone was in here." A man who bore quite a striking resemblance to Lex's friend Bob, stepped into the room.  
  
Before Clark could even speak, could even get up from the chair he was rendered speechless by the sight of a white wolf-dog, wagging his tail, coming toward him.  
  
Dief, who happily licked the tears off Clark's face. "Oh, God. You're real." And hope sprang in Clark's heart.  
  
"Diefenbaker," the stranger curtly called to the dog. "Shameless behaviour," were the words he murmured to his four legged companion. "He's usually not this friendly," the man tried to explain. "I'm sorry, but have we met?"  
  
"I'm Clark. Clark Kent."  
  
"Oh...yes. Lex's friend. Diefenbaker mentioned you. He has been quite devoted to your friend. From the moment he found him, he hasn't left his side."  
  
"And you are?"  
  
"Benton Fraser, Royal Mounted Police. I came to Chicago in search of my father's killers..."  
  
And Clark drowned out the rest of his words, his mind replaying one thought, Dief was real.  
  
"We just dropped by to see how young Lex was doing, to keep him company, but if you are staying...?"  
  
Forever, Clark thought.  
  
"I'll leave you two alone."  
  
Clark hugged Diefenbaker one more time, then went back to watching Lex, waiting for him to awaken, hoping that somehow Lex would know how much Clark cared for him.  
  
It was almost midnight, past visiting hours, when Lex opened his eyes, blinking slowly, focusing on the face before him.  
  
"Clark?" he gasped, his voice hoarse and Clark offered him water, holding the cup for Lex.  
  
"Am I still dead?" Lex asked frowning slightly and then yelping aloud when Clark tossed the cup to the side and reached over to kiss him.  
  
"..."  
  
"Lex."  
  
Their foreheads touched, they both breathed, unable to believe this was true and thankful that the gods had smiled upon them and granted them this. A second chance of happiness.  
  
"No more closets?" Lex asked after Clark settled more comfortably on the bed.  
  
"No, but you are always welcome in my bed, Lex. In my life." And they slept. Lex in Clark's arms, both content.  
  
~oo00oo~  
  
Fin.  
  
~oo00oo~ 


End file.
